Chesapeake Councilman Hayes to become a Democrat
CHESAPEAKE — A day after he left the Republican party, Chesapeake Councilman C.E. “Cliff” Hayes Jr. announced Saturday that he will become a Democrat.
“I’d rather be disliked for who I am than to be loved for who I am not,” Hayes told a group of 20 friends and supporters at the Residence Inn by Marriott in Chesapeake.
Hayes said that he didn’t like the direction of the Republican Party on issues such as affordable housing and economic development.
Welcome, Councilman Hayes!
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Is he FOR economic development, or against it?
Does he want to force private citizens to give up some of their property to poor people by force of law? Or does he have some other idea of affordable housing that doesn’t take money from some people and give it to others in exchange for their votes in the next election?
I can think of good reasons to leave the Republican party, but I’m not sure these are the two items that a person who previously identified themselves as a republican would find different today. So far as I can tell, republicans have not really changed their opinion on these two issues in the recent past.
Maybe he now has a better understanding of the huge gap between Republican rhetoric on these and other issues and cold, hard reality.